


these long summer days

by honey_wheeler



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: F/M, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She comes to understand him in pieces, in scraps and patches and bits that she discovers over time. It’s good that way, she thinks. Megan’s always liked having something to look forward to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	these long summer days

Anoop is a gentleman. It’s one of the things Megan likes best about him. She hasn’t known very many of them in her life; something about her seems to encourage ungentlemanly conduct. It’s probably the long blonde hair. She could die it black or cut it short like a boy, maybe then she wouldn’t get so many catcalls and leers, but she doesn’t want to. She wants Ryder to recognize her, for one thing. Fuck all those assholes, for another.

He’s about as far from those men as he could be. The rest of them are too, Kris and Adam and Scott, all of them, but there’s something about Anoop that catches her attention, that makes her happy in a loose-limbed, indefinable way. She thinks she’d like to introduce him to her grandmother.

*****

He loves word games, puzzles, trivia challenges. All sorts of things that make her head hurt. Words have never been her strong point. She doesn’t trust them. They never quite capture all the things that are in her head. He always tries to get everyone else to play along, but no one else knows the capital of Tonga, so the games never last long. He’s been threatening to organize a Trivial Pursuit tournament, but Megan thinks he’d be the only participant.

“Can I help?” she asks one day. He’d picked up the Sunday New York Times when they’d stopped for gas and the usual mid-morning bus scramble, everyone taking the chance to see some new faces for a while. He’s been poring over the crossword puzzle for an hour, his pen – “I like living on the edge,” he’d said once when Sarver suggested filling it in with a pencil so he could erase mistakes – hovering over the thin paper. He looks over at her in surprise.

“You want to?” he asks. “I thought you didn’t like these.”

“I don’t,” she shrugs. “But you do. So I’d like to help.” He gets this funny, goofy smile on his face. A dimple creases his cheek. She smiles back at him, touches her fingertip to that dimple. He looks a little flustered and he drops his eyes, rustles the paper unnecessarily. She’s always felt like he has a little bit of a crush on her. Maybe she shouldn’t touch him so much. What if he gets the wrong impression? But then, it really _isn’t_ the wrong impression. And she’s never been one to ignore her impulses.

Usually when he’s done with the crossword puzzle, he spends an hour or two reading the rest of the newspaper. He frowns at the pages, mutters to himself. Says things like, “well, that’s fantastic,” or, “for fuck’s sake.” The expression on his face is always so serious, so intent.

“There’s so much to hate about the world,” he says one day after reading the front page. It’s filled with blood and war, violence in far-flung parts of the world. Exactly the sort of stuff that makes her avoid reading the paper in the first place. He looks tired and miserable. He scrubs a hand across his face, pinches the bridge of his nose.

“But there’s a lot to love about it, too,” she reminds him.

She likes to find excuses to interrupt his concentration when he’s reading. He never gets annoyed with her, never acts like she’s a bother. Sometimes, when they’ve been driving for hours and it’s hot and sticky and she feels like melting butter, she pushes him farther and farther, trying to find something that’ll make him snap at her. It’s the same thing she used to do with her brother when they were kids, poking and poking until the whole thing erupted into fists. But nothing ever works; he’s always calm and kind to her, no matter how ridiculous she gets. Usually it’s Lil who breaks first, using her very best Mommy-is-tired-now voice to ask Megan to zip her lip for just five minutes, _please_.

Sometimes Megan likes to sit next to him. Sometimes she likes to sit across the bus and just watch him. Sometimes she calls Ryder and makes Anoop tell him stories. None of the other boys will do the voices, but Anoop does. The long drives are more interesting when he’s around.

*****

He reads to her sometimes, at her request, stories or poems or passages from essays that come in a thick book. He brought more books than anyone, something his suitcase proves anytime someone has to lift it. The poems are her favorites, even though they don’t always make sense to her. Strangely, the ones she doesn’t understand are the ones she likes the most. Instead of focusing on the meaning, she lets herself simply listen to his voice, the way it molds around the words.

A few of the poems seem to embarrass him, which gives her a good enough idea of what they’re about, even if she doesn’t actually _get_ them. It’s probably terrible of her to ask him to read those over and over the way she does. It makes him nervous. There’s one poem in particular – a dark, exciting, violent poem about a swan and a girl – that flusters him, so that he avoids her eyes and grips the book tightly enough to wrinkle the pages. That’s the one she requests the most. He always reads it, no questions asked, even though sometimes he gets so flushed that she can practically see steam rising off his skin.

When she tries to guess which poems he likes best, she’s almost always wrong. She comes to understand him in pieces, in scraps and patches and bits that she discovers over time. It’s good that way, she thinks. Megan’s always liked having something to look forward to.

*****

“We’ve been kicked out,” Anoop announces when he appears at the front of the bus. Megan and Lil look up, confused.

“We who?”

“All of us.” He settles down on one of the benches across from them, his legs stretching out almost completely across the aisle. Megan’s always liked the way he sits, all loose and assured. So completely unconcerned about taking up more than his fair share of space. “The terrible trio is practicing something together. Allison said we couldn’t hear until it was ready, so we’re banished until the next bathroom break.”

“Those three,” Lil clucks. “They’re gonna get sick of each other.” Megan’s not so sure about that. Adam, Kris and Allison have been spending pretty much every waking moment together and they’re still inseparable, even halfway into the tour. She’s pretty sure they won’t be sick of each other even when they’re old and grey. It gives her a little pang, sometimes. She kind of misses being part of that. Things went on without her when she was voted off. Anoop catches her eye, gives her a smile. She smiles back. Well, she’s got her own little group now.

The rest of the boys clomp up the front stairs and crowd into the bus. The aisle is suddenly full of them. Megan and Lil look at each other.

“We’ve been invaded,” Megan says.

“Don’t worry, all I want to do is nap,” Danny tells her, rubbing one eye blearily with his knuckles. Megan can’t remember the last time he _wasn’t_ tired. He and Michael push towards the lounge area at the back of the bus, Scott trailing behind, his brother’s hand on his elbow to guide him. She can hear them back there, rustling around, muttering at each other. She twitches the curtain over the hallway closed. Matt collapses onto the couch next to Anoop and holds out his fist for a bump.

“Nooooop,” he says. “My toasty bagel. My lemon pudding. My curry vindaloo. How’s it hanging?”

“Why is it always food with you, Giraud?” Anoop asks with a sigh.

“Because I’m always hungry,” Matt shrugs. He looks over at Megan for support and she nods encouragingly. She doesn’t always understand Matt’s sense of humor. It’s okay, though. He almost never understands hers.

They all talk for a little while, but it peters out after a bit and they lapse into silence, absorbed in their own little worlds. It’s one of the longer drives they have on the tour. They’re all starting to feel listless, fatigued. Tempers are frayed. Attention spans are shorter. Mild outbreaks of delirium are frequent. Megan tries to focus on her journal, but she keeps finding herself staring at nothing, her pen sitting against the paper so long that a huge blob of blue ink is spreading on the bottom of the page like one of those tests psychiatrists give you to tell if you’re crazy.

Telephone poles whiz by the bus windows in a hypnotic rhythm, a soft whumping sound accompanying each one. It makes her feel a little dizzy. A little like she’s floating outside her own skin. Maybe that’s why she can’t drag her eyes away from Anoop’s hands. He’s fiddling with his phone, frowning at the screen in concentration as he taps and pokes at it. The back of the phone is light, brilliant against his fingers. She imagines her skin would look much the same under his hands, pale where he’s dark. Her fingers, white in the blackness of his hair. She shakes her head. Tries to think of something else. How many more cities on the tour. What she’ll have for lunch. How his shoulder curves where it slopes up into neck. The itch on the back of her left calf. The catch and slide of fingers in shadowed places, his tongue between her legs…

Sheer fucking _want_ shoots through her body at the thought, so violently that she sucks in her breath. Lil glances at her curiously. Megan forces herself to smile casually, to loosen her fingers from the edge of the tabletop, until Lil shrugs and looks back down at the magazine in front of her.

“Jesus, Megs,” she thinks to herself. “Get a hold of yourself, girl.”

*****

It’s like a floodgate’s been opened. Now that she’s thought about, it’s _all_ she can think about. When she should be sleeping, when they’re having lunch, when they’re lying around the greenroom bored, waiting to go on. She should be thinking about her set, about the Middle East, about the meaning of life. Instead she’s thinking of biting the webbing between Anoop’s thumb and index finger, applying her teeth to the skin like it’s a lemon wedge.

It doesn’t help that he has an uncanny knack for looking at her _right_ when she’s imagining something inappropriate. She’s half afraid he can hear her _thinking_ , he’s so good at catching her. Luckily she’s never been much of a blusher. She’s got that going for her, at least.

*****

Days off mean nights out. It’s so rare for them to stay in a hotel, to be able to go out and drink and eat and come back to a bed sitting on solid ground, that they almost never pass up an opportunity. It drives Allison nuts. She hates the idea that she might miss out on something just because she’s too young for bars and clubs and has to stay back at the hotel with her mother. Megan has to promise every time that she’ll text if anything really good happens.

Allison would like this club. It’s all red and purple and black, swags of curtains covering every wall, pillows and thick rugs on every inch of floor. Like the inside of a Moroccan whorehouse. Just in Ohio. They’d all shared a hookah earlier and Megan’s head is buzzing now. She doesn’t even smoke cigarettes, but somehow it seems better when a hookah is involved – more elegant, more trippy. Like she’s Alice in Wonderland.

“Does that make me the caterpillar?” Anoop asks when she relays that thought to him. She cranes her head back to examine him. They’re squashed together in the corner of a booth, one of her knees resting on his thigh, her arm hooked through his. They’d all crowded into one booth when they first got there. Everyone left a while ago, though. Danny had sworn up and down that one of the lighting techs knew a good club downtown and they’d all agreed to go. But Megan hadn’t wanted to leave and Anoop – sweet, chivalrous Anoop – he said he’d stay with her. They could have spread out in the booth, taken up a little more room, if either of them had been inclined to.

“Maybe the Mad Hatter,” she pronounces at length, after scrutinizing him.

“Oh good,” he laughs. “Just what I was hoping for.”

He disentangles him to make his way to the bar for fresh drinks. The air feels colder against her skin now that he’s not pressed against her. She watches him thread through the club. He’s easily half a head taller than most of the people here. She’d have to stand on tiptoe to reach his mouth if she wanted to kiss him.

She’s glad they’re in a hotel tonight. It’s possible to get yourself off in a tour bus – and goodness knows they probably all do it enough – but it’s not ideal. Hotel rooms offer more options, marginally more privacy. She didn’t look too closely, but she’s pretty sure there’s one of those spa bathtubs in their bathroom, one with jets. If Lil’s there when she gets back, she can always take a long, hot bath and imagine Anoop’s hands on her, his fingers and his tongue and his-

“That’s a funny look on your face,” Anoop says when he comes back with drinks. Her eyes pop open. “What are you thinking about?”

“Masturbation,” she says. Might as well be honest. He immediately bobbles the glasses, spilling a third of the liquid on the floor before he steadies them.

“ _What?_ ”

“Well, you asked,” she shrugs. “It’s what I was thinking of.”

“It was more of an exclamation than a question, but okay.” He slides back into the booth. She’s pleased when he sits close to her again, even though there’s plenty of room.

“What’s it like on the boys’ bus?” she asks. “There are so _many_ of you. Does it get all gross at night? There are only three of us. Well, except Lil’s got some really weird ideas about the whole thing, so she doesn’t do it much. It’s mostly me and Allison, so it’s not too bad.” She frowns. “And Allison’s mom, but we don’t talk about it with her, just with each other.”

“Oh my god, girls talk about this?” He looks both horrified and intrigued.

“Of course we do. Don’t boys?”

“Not _these_ boys,” Anoop says emphatically.

“Are you telling me none of you jack off on the bus?” The look she gives him is skeptical. She’s known too many boys to believe that. She could buy it for Scott, maybe, but not for anyone else.

“No, I’m just telling you we don’t _talk_ about it. We don’t _have_ to talk about it, we can _hear_ it.”

“Ew. Really?”

“Sarver’s the loudest,” he says. “But Danny’s the most frequent.” Megan makes an involuntary noise.

“I’m not sure I wanted to know that,” she says.

“I don’t see why I should suffer alone,” he tells her philosophically. She has to admit. It’s a good point.

“I’m probably the worst of the girls,” she offers in return. “Frequency-wise.” His eyes widen and shift to hers, before he covers his face with his hand.

“Oh God, Meg, don’t tell me things like that,” he groans.

“Oh, like it’s any worse than you telling me about Michael and Danny?” she demands indignantly.

“It’s not worse,” he says, his voice muffled behind his hand. “It’s so, so far from worse, I can’t even tell you. It is the polar opposite of worse.”

“Oh,” she says. Then it sinks in, what he really means. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’.” He drops his hand back into his lap and stares straight ahead. Megan’s suddenly hyper aware of his weight against her side, the length of him pressed against her. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows nervously, his nostrils flare. Suddenly she feels powerful. She can’t resist torturing him a little.

“What about you?” she asks. His eyes dart over to her. She likes how dark they are, how you can’t even tell the difference between iris and pupil.

“Me?” he asks dumbly. She arches one eyebrow.

“Frequency-wise. And volume-wise.”

“Megan!”

“What! I’m curious. I told you mine.”

“Not entirely,” he counters. “You weren’t exactly precise in your terminology.”

“Do you want me to be?” she says with an exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows. It makes him laugh, breaks the tension a bit.

“I don’t think I should answer that,” he says. She’d press the issue, but she’s still interested in her first question.

“Come on, tell me. Are you loud like Michael?”

“Geez, Megan!”

“I’m not loud,” she continues. “I’m good at being quiet.”

“ _Megan_.”

“Do you think of anyone specific?” She gives him an impish grin. The look he shoots at her is so hot, so full of naked longing, that the grin slides right off her face and she’s left feeling shaky and short of breath. This started out as teasing but it’s turned into something else, something she’s not quite sure how to handle. They stare at each other for a long minute until he ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck with one big hand.

“We should probably get back to the hotel,” he says. He sounds reluctant. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on her part. He offers her his hand after he stands, helps her navigate the steps. Guides her with that same hand at the small of her back as they leave the club. She’s a little unsteady. It’s not just because of the alcohol.

She’s not sure when she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, but that’s where it is as they cross the parking lot. The skin is slightly warmer there, the pulse closer to the surface. It’s thumping along now, fast and a little uneven. Experimentally, she lets her breasts brush against his arm. The pulse spikes and stutters before resuming a little faster than before. He doesn’t make any move to increase the pressure, though. When they find a cab, he opens the door for her and she scoots in, sliding to the middle of the seat.

His shirt is soft and worn under her cheek when she rests her head on his shoulder. It smells spicy and musky. His hands are folded together in his lap and he flexes his fingers, twists them against each other. Megan knows well enough by now when a guy wants her. The fact that he’s not doing anything about it is sweet. It makes her like him even more. She snakes her hand between his arm and his body and twines her arm with his.

“They make ‘em right in North Carolina.” She hugs his arm against her chest.

“I’ll tell North Carolina you said so,” he says with a strangled laugh.

*****

The others aren’t there when they get back to the hotel. It’s just the two of them (as long you don’t count poor underage Allison and her mother, who are on a different floor altogether). Anoop walks her to her room and waits at the door as she fumbles for her keycard, taking it from her with steady hands and deftly opening the door when she keeps putting it in the wrong way. He kisses her on the cheek, tells her goodnight. He’s gone before she has time to consider doing something she shouldn’t.

She imagines it’s not her own hands touching her after she’s changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed. It’s his long fingers, velvety brown against the pearl of her skin, moving carefully over her, into her. Touching her like she’s important. Like she’s precious. The cotton of the pillowcase is dry against her tongue when she bites it as she comes.

Normally she falls asleep straight after, but tonight she lies awake, restless and frustrated. It’s an unfamiliar sensation. Maybe if it weren’t so unusual, she’d be able to forget it. She’d count sheep and close her eyes and wake up the next day like every other day. Instead she hunts down her keycard and slips out of her room, padding silently down the hall.

It takes her a couple of tries to force her knuckles to rap softly on his door. If she were smart she’d go back to her own room. She’d take a Tylenol PM, get in bed, and pass out for a while. Well. She’s never been all that smart, so screw it.

The door cracks open. He leans a forearm against the jamb, blinks owlishly against the light in the hallway. His hair is mussed and boyish. Plaid flannel pants ride low on his hips. The tank top he’s wearing looks like it came in a pack of three; it’s crisp and white, a sharp contrast to his skin, to the dark hair swirling at his armpits and at the base of his throat. She expects that she’ll have to explain – why she’s here, what she wants. But he just steps aside, holds the door open for her. Apparently it’s more obvious than she thought.

“You probably shouldn’t be in here,” he says after he’s closed the door.

“Probably not,” she agrees. All the lights are switched off. The only source of illumination is from outside, filtering through the filmy curtains. His shirt is like a beacon in the dark. She takes a step forward, then another, until she’s within arm’s reach. Until she can see the whites of his eyes, a dim counterpart to his shirt. Her keycard makes a clattering noise when she tosses it on top of the dresser.

His fingers find the drawstring of her pajamas and tug, slowly, carefully, a gentle pull at her waist that sends shivers up her spine. The sloppy bow comes undone, but the pressure continues; he reels her in, like a fish or a wild mustang he plans to tame. She can’t resist shaking her hair like a mane, making a whinnying noise. Any other boy would stop, would frown in confusion or back away like she’s crazy. Anoop just laughs.

The touch of his mouth is more than a kiss. It’s a discovery, an exploration, a walk on the moon. She opens her mouth under his, begs him with tongue and teeth and the press of her body. He is obliging. He’s always obliging. She reminds herself to tell him how much she likes that about him. Later. She’ll tell him later.

Her thin tank top is little barrier. He lies beside her on the bed that’s suddenly beneath them – she has no memory of moving across the room, of lying down, of anything past the point when his tongue stole into her mouth. His hand pushes the fabric up her ribs, spreads across her abdomen. It’s so big that it spans from hip to hip. Her stomach jumps and quivers in response, like she’s swallowed a handful of jumping beans. When his fingers dip beneath the waistband of her pajama pants, the noise she makes is choked, guttural. He freezes.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “Should I stop?”

She tries to answer, but her tongue won’t work, her lips refuse to form words. Instead she covers his hand with hers, pushes it lower until it’s where she wants it, where she desperately needs it.

There’s no argument about a condom, he just produces one from his suitcase where it lies open next to the bed. He’s not inexperienced, but there’s still something new about the way he moves above her, something tender and green. She hitches her legs up, changes the angle, and he groans, his eyes almost rolling back in his head. There’s so much she could teach him. She’ll parcel it out, break everything into pieces, like she’s leaving him a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

Megan’s always looked at sex like an act of faith. So much is promised in a kiss that may never materialize. There’s so much potential for disappointment. But with him she doesn’t even have to steel herself, there’s no need to protect her heart. She doesn’t have the words to tell him of her admiration, her respect. Of the affection she feels for him. So she tells him with her body, with her trust.

*****

The rattling of the door startles them awake. Megan hadn’t intended to fall asleep. Anoop sits half upright, his eyes confused until he sees her next to him. Surprise shows in his face, chased by recognition, by remembrance and interest. She finds herself suddenly shy. He draws one fingertip down her cheek, skates it across her chin. He’s leaning towards her mouth when the door rattles again.

“Anoop, what the hell is wrong with the door?” Matt’s hushed voice says from the hallway. “Do you have that bar lock on or something?” Anoop looks at the door and then back at Megan.

“Well, shit,” he says to her, then louder, for Matt, “just a minute!” They hunt down their clothing on the floor, hopping into pant legs and pulling shirts over their heads. Megan has to fight an urge to giggle. Her keycard is where she left it on the dresser. She tucks it into the waistband of her pants.

“Okay?” Anoop whispers to her. “Are we okay?” He pats down his chest and his hips distractedly, making sure his pajamas are in order. She nods so he reaches for the bar lock. On impulse, she grabs his hand. “What?” he whispers. Her answer is a kiss, one that she hopes captures everything in her head, all the jumbled words and feelings and thoughts. He leans into her, turns his head and slides his tongue along her teeth.

“Anoop, come on, man, let me in!” Matt says insistently from outside. They break apart and Anoop reluctantly flips the lock open and lets Matt inside.

“Geez, took you long eno-” Matt breaks off when he sees Megan. A smirk replaces the look of annoyance on his face. “Well hello, Megan. What have you crazy kids been up to, hm?”

“Playing charades,” she says, before Anoop can answer. She grins at him, throwing in a wink for good measure. “Goodnight, boys.” She slips out the door and pads down the hallway. She listens for his door closing, but there’s no sound. When she reaches the end of the hallway, she turns and sees him still standing there, half in and half out of the open door. They wave at each other, a simple raised hand, and she lets herself into her room.

It’s the best night’s sleep she’s had the entire tour.

*****

There’s no uncertainty the next morning, no shyness. They smile at each other across the breakfast table, he helps her carry her things out to the bus. When it comes time to leave, he doesn’t even attempt the pretense of riding on his own bus until the first break. Instead he follows her to her bus, climbs the steps behind her. Sits next to her on the bench and lets his knee fall against hers. She smiles and touches the toe of her shoe to his, the yellow cotton of her ballet flat against the white rubber and canvas of his Converse.

“Read me the poem about the swan again,” she says. So he does.

 

  
_title from “these long summer days” by She’s Spanish, I’m American_   



End file.
